Old fashioned scrapbooking

Yesterday in church I got talking to the team priest's wife. I gave her some photos of her husband's father, who had been the Canon at the church where I grew up on the other side of the country. Yup, major coincidence, isn't it?

In talking, it turned out that she scrap-books too! My face lit up. But then she said that she doesn't do {imagine slightly dismissive tone here} that modern kind, with all the decoration all over the pages. Oh.

I'm not exactly sure what she does. I said, oh do you mean sticking the photos straight onto the pages with just labels? But she didn't really agree or disagree.

I've only been scrapping for 5 years. I know some of you have been doing it for a long time. Has anyone any idea of what style she may have meant?

I'm not sure what she meant, but the scrapbooks I knew of when I was young were large books with pages that seemed like construction paper and the book was bound together and had hardback covers. On the construction paper-like pages, pictures and memorabilia would be glued or taped to the pages. The ones I've seen were usually done in sort of a collage-y way.

The ones I think of are really picture albums with construction-type pages and the photos are secured with the old photo corners, not adhesive.

Some people think that just putting pictures in a sleeve-album for one event, or in order by date, is scrapbooking.

But old-fashioned to me is using the "construction paper" kind of albums (if they still sell those)- or worse yet, the "magnetic" sticky albums, which I hope they don't sell any more.

To me old-fashioned is taping or rubber cementing pics and memorabilia to non-archival papers in non-archival albums so that they fall apart and ruin everything in them. I am now in the midst of rescrapping what I can--though had to throw away a lot of things because I couldn't loosen them from the rotten (literally) paper.

As an opposite, modern archival scrapping leaves the scrapper free to use any materials and style she wants!

When I think of old fashioned, I think of mine that are stored in my cedar chest. They were large paper books, like maybe 12x18, with a heavy paper cover with some kind of picture, pets, nature, scenery, etc. The pages were newsprint. Mine are full of pictures and memorabilia just glued to the pages. All of my high school orchestra pics and awards, prom memories like my corsages and dance cards, sports pep ribbons and club stuff is there. There's Girl Scout camp stuff from when I was a counselor, lots of greeting cards, and random photos I took over the years.

Do you know what I notice every time I look at them? They were all stuck down with LePage's glue that came in a bottle with a slit rubber applicator top. They called it mucilage, and if I remember correctly it was supposed to have been made from horses' hooves. Now, that's been over 50 years, and the stuff is still STUCK TIGHT! Wonder why we pay so much for adhesives today that don't do nearly that well? And as for archival, my things look just like they did when I glued them in the book, LOL!

I remember that glue!

Maybe she just mats photos onto coordinating paper and doesn't embellish?

She probably has those big albums with the black paper pages where she rubber cements the photos down and perhaps writes in white ink! That is what I think of, at least!

• CupcakeTwins Said:

This is what I was picturing. I unearthed some of my mother's old scrapbooks. The album cover was large and made of leather with the word, "Scrapbook" embossed in gold writing on the front. She used photo corners, however, instead of rubber cement.

Hi Rosey!! :-) I would think that she means just very simple. . . I have a BFF that uses very little on her pages, and only a few cardstock or maybe one pattern paper. Doesn't mat her photos, and uses a "few" stickers at most. Over time, sitting next to me who throws everything but the kitchen sink on my pages, she's now using a die cut title here and there and even. . .shocking. . . a little ribbon! LOL Maybe she's just a little intimidated by all the "stuff" there is out there now. . .

Thank you for your input, everybody.

Jen and Katie, those black pages with the white writing were what my Grandpa used to do with their photos. They were glued in, not photo cornered, but everything was meticulously labelled. He called it a photo album not a scrapbook, if I remember correctly.

I had the sugar paper "scrapbooks" as a child, and I used to stick stickers and decoupage sheets, and pictures cut from magazines using flour-and-water paste! They are still available now.

LOL Marty - how radical of her! I can completely see how "our world" can be intimidating though.

All very interesting. I might probe a little more when I see her next. She's a lovely lady and it would be so nice to have a local scrapping buddy. I have a suspicion that we are working at opposite ends of a fairly long piece of string though!

I must be too young to know what all this old stuff you ladies are talking about are!

This is so wierd! I just put up a post on my blog that mentions these old type of scrapbooks, that our mom's or grandma's use to glue or tape in newpaper clippings, recipes etc. I've started scrapbooking my pictures of a trip to Paris and this old type of scrapbooking is my sort of starting point or concept behind my project. To read more about what I mean you can visit my blog at http://artfulscrapbooking.wordpress.com/ Again, too wierd!!

When my best friend started scrapbooking back in the early 90's she says that scrapbookers never used 3D embellishments. She used 8 1/2 x 11 pages and flat, paper embellishments. Maybe that's what she meant.

• Crafting Marfa Said:

LOL That's how I started scrapping in 2001. I was supposedly all about 'archival' and even using something as thick as cardstock was questionable, because I didn't want to damage the other pics in the album when the album was closed.

• justowen Said:

I remember those days! I was always afraid I'd ruin something, then with digital pics I thought. . .what the heck, I'll just reprint if I need to! :-) Though I still don't do really thick things, just because I don't want to squash anything I've worked a while on. . .

Here's old-fasioned for you .. I have a scrapbook made for me by my grandmother when I was a baby (keep in mind this is over 65 years ago!) She took rectangles of plain white cotton material and soaked it in glue, then dried it to make it stiff. She stacked several together and sewed a seam up the center, forming a book. Then she glued on such things as the little cards that used to come in boxes of laundry detergent, newspaper clippings and magazine pictures, etc. It hasn't yellowed and nothing has ever come loose! It still just amazes me. This post has made me decide to take out out of my cedar chest and put it on display in my scrap room! Thanks.

That is really neat Darla. I've never heard of a process like that. I would display it too!

I think I would ask the woman at church if you could see one of her scrapbooks. That you love looking a pictures and are intrigued ever since she told you she made scrapbooks. Then tell us! We all want to know!

Darla that's a wonderful thing to own. Can you post pics of it? I would love to see.

Henri, I will do that. I would love to see what she's doing too, I just wondered whether there was some set technique that I hadn't heard of because I'd come into scrap-booking so late. I'll get back to you if I manage to find anything out.

Thanks everyone!

• RedSquirrel Said:

I would love to see it, too, Darla!

• dwelch Said:

So neat! Lucky

dwelch, that sounds so wonderful!! What a beautiful thing to have!!! If you get time to post pics. I would love to see it, too. ~Evie

my blog: http://artfulscrapbooking.wordpress.com/